The European residents' attitude towards

immigrants: a comparative analysis based

on the ESS data

Demidova Olga, demidova@hse.ru

The 2nd LCSR “Social Change in Cross-National Perspective”, 6 – 10 November 2012, NRU HSE, Moscow

Problem

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SEARCH Project

The Sharing KnowledgE Assets: InteRregionally Cohesive NeigHborhoods (SEARCH) is a project financed by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development in the ‘Socio-economic sciences and the humanities’ area.

Work Package 5: Institutional Environment Differences with respect to levels of social capital in European and neighborhood countries

ESS special questions

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Immigration bad or good for country's economy (0 – bad for the economy, …, 10 – good for the economy)

Country's cultural life undermined or enriched by immigrants (0 - Cultural life undermined, …, 10 - Cultural life enriched)

Immigrants make country worse or better place to live (0 - Worse place to live,…, 10 - Better place to live)

Previous studies

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•Brenner J. and Fertig M. (2006). “Identifying the Determinants of Attitudes Towards Immigrants: A Structural Cross-Country Analysis.”

•Card D., Dustmann C. and Preston I. (2005). “Understanding attitudes to immigration: The migration and minority module of the first European Social Survey” . CReAM Discussion Paper No 03/05

•Hjerm M. (2009). “Anti-Immigrant Attitudes and Cross-Municipal Variation in the Proportion of Immigrants”

•Malchow-Moeller N., Munch J. R., Schroll S. and Skaksen J. R. (2006). “Attitudes Towards Immigration: Does Economic Self-Interest Matter?”

•Müller T. and Tai S. (2010). “Individual attitudes towards migration: a reexamination of the evidence”

•Rustenbach E. (2010). “Sources of Negative Attitudes toward Immigrants in Europe: A Multi-Level Analysis”.

Main previous results

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•Card: “there is substantial variation in the strength of anti-immigrant opinion across European countries, and that attitudes towards immigration also vary systematically with characteristics such as age, education, individuals’ employment status, religion, and urban/rural location”.

•Malchow-Moeller: There is “positive relationship between education and the general attitude towards immigration”

•Brenner and Fertig: “Higher education of both the respondents and their parents affect views on foreigners positively”, “Differences in average attitudes across countries can to some extent be explained by per capita GDP differences”.

•Müller and Silvio: “The labor-market and welfare-state mechanisms play a significant role in explaining individual attitudes”

•Rustenbach: “Key predictors of anti-immigrant attitudes are regional and national interpersonal trust, education level, foreign direct investment, and political variables”.

A distinctive feature of this paper

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1. Comparing the attitude towards immigrants in three types of countries:

• those which joined the European Union before 2004 (“Old” European Countries),

• those which joined the European Union since 2004 (“New” European Countries),

• and non European Union countries, Russia and Ukraine, which border the European Union.

2. Revealing what factors, individual or macroeconomic, have a greater impact on the attitude of people towards migrants.

Some descriptive statistics for the dependent variables

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“Old” European Countries

“New” European Countries

Russia and Ukraine

Immigrants bad or good for country's economy (0 – bad for the economy,…, 10 – good for the economy)

Mean=4.69 Mean=4.39 Mean=4.12

Country's cultural life undermined or enriched by immigrants (0 - Cultural life undermined, …, 10 - Cultural life enriched)

Mean=5.45 Mean=5.05 Mean=4.04

Immigrants make country worse or better place to live (0 - Worse place to live, …, 10 - Better place to live)

Mean=4.79 Mean=4.61 Mean=3.76

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Hypotheses

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Hypothesis 1. The attitude of the inhabitants in "Old", "New", and

"Non" European countries to migrants differs.

Hypothesis 2. The higher individual level of education the better

his/her attitude towards migrants.

Hypothesis 3. The higher the level of country’s economic

development (high GDP per cap, low level of corruption and

unemployment) the better the citizens’ attitude towards

migrants.

Independent variables

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Basic individual variables

Description Additional individual variables

Description Macro-economic variables

Description

Age Age of respondent Religiosity How religious are you? (0 – not et all, …, 10 – very)

GDP GDP per capita, PPP (current international $)

Male Sex of respondent (1 – male, 0 – female)

Citizenship Citizen of country(1-yes, 0 – no)

Unemployment

Unemployment rate in the country (%)

Income Income scale (1 – low, …, 10 - high)

Minority Belong to the minority ethnic group

CPI Corruption Perception Index

Unempl Indicator of unemployment status

NE “New” EU country indicator

Migration Net migration/Population total 100%∙

Ed3, Ed4, Ed5, Ed6

Levels of education

RU Russia and Ukraine indicator

Model

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IncomeRUNE

MaleRUNEAgeRU

NEAgeRUNEY

RUinNEinin

RUmNEmmRUa

NEaaRUaNEaa

)(

)()

()(2

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EdRUNE

EdRUNEEdRU

NEUnemplRUNE

RUedNEeded

RUedNEededRUed

NEededRUuNEuu

XRUNE

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Results of estimation (Y = Immigrants make country worse or better place to live, 0 – worse, …, 10 – better)

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Variable Coefficient estimate

Variable Coefficient estimate

Variable Coefficient estimate

Age -0.032*** Income 0.081*** Ed4 0.786***

Age NE∙ 0.014*** Income NE∙ -0.037*** Ed4 NE∙ -1.058***

Age RU∙ -0.007 Income RU∙ -0.095*** Ed4 RU∙ -0.701***

Age2 0.00024*** Unempl 0.031 Ed5 1.071***

Age2 NE∙ -0.00017*** Unempl NE∙ -0.008 Ed5 NE∙ -0.801***

Age2 RU∙ 0.000061 Unempl RU∙ -0.265*** Ed5 RU∙ -0.52

Male 0.012 Ed3 0.255 Ed6 1.416***

Male NE∙ -0.014 Ed3 NE∙ -0.273*** Ed6 NE∙ -0.883***

Male RU∙ -0.048 Ed3 RU∙ -0.315*** Ed6 RU∙ -1.379***

Hypotheses tests

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Hypothesis 1. The attitude of the inhabitants in "Old", "New", and

"Non" European countries to migrants differs - Confirmed

Hypothesis 2. The higher individual level of education the better

his/her attitude towards migrants - Confirmed

Hypothesis 3. The higher the level of country’s economic

development (high GDP per cap, low level of corruption and

unemployment) the better the citizens’ attitude towards migrants

– Only partly confirmed

Common features

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With age attitude towards migrants firstly gets worse, then after reaching a turning point (50-60 years) starts to improve.

In all countries men more than woman believe migrants help the economy but more critically evaluate to the cultural contribution of immigrants.

Attitude towards immigrants improves with increasing educational level.

People having citizenship evaluate the contribution of migrants negatively.

At the same time minorities (who may or may not have citizenship) estimate migrants’ contribution higher.

The estimated contribution of migrants also increase with GDP growth.

The less corrupt a country is, the higher the estimated economic contribution of migrants

Differences

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•In Europe, with increasing income residents’ evaluation of both the economic and the cultural contribution of migrants increases, while in Russia and Ukraine only the economic contribution increase (whereas evaluation of cultural contribution decrease). •The unemployed in Russia and Ukraine are also skeptical about the cultural contributions of migrants. •In “Old” Europe more religious citizens regard the cultural impact of migrants negatively, and in “New” Europe, Russia and Ukraine positively.•The higher the level of unemployment in “Old” Europe, the lower the estimate of the economic contribution of migrants. In “New” Europe, Russia and Ukraine there is the opposite trend. •In the countries of “Old” Europe, the percentage of migrants in the population of a country is positively related to the assessment of the economic contribution of migrants. In “New” Europe, Russia and Ukraine there is the opposite trend.

Influence of micro and macro level factors

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Immigrants bad or good for country's economy (0 – bad for the economy,…, 10 – good for the economy)

Country's cultural life undermined or enriched by immigrants (0 - Cultural life undermined, …, 10 - Cultural life enriched)

Immigrants make country worse or better place to live (0 - Worse place to live, …, 10 - Better place to live)

Micro-level factors

Old EU

New EU

Non EU

Old EU New EU

Non EU

Old EU New EU

Non EU

59.7% 55.5% 66.5%

42% 29.7% 35.7% 42.3% 36.5% 40.4%

Macro-level factors

Old EU

New EU

Non EU

Old EU New EU

Non EU

Old EU New EU

Non EU

40.3% 44.5% 33.5% 58% 70.3% 64.3% 57.7% 63.5% 59.6%

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Conclusions and policy implications

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• Using the analysis for the three groups of countries we can pick out groups of citizens whose attitudes to immigrants are most negative. For example, in all countries, it is middle-aged, low educated citizens. In the "Old" Europe they are the most religious citizens. In Russia and Ukraine they are on the one hand people with high income and on the other hand the unemployed. To avoid increased social tension authorities should pay such groups of citizens more attention.

General attitudes towards migrants are mostly dependent not on the individual characteristics of citizens but on the economic situation in the country in which these citizens live. In particular, the higher the GDP per cap the higher the estimated contribution of immigrants.

20, Myasnitskaya str., Moscow, Russia, 101000Tel.: +7 (495) 628-8829, Fax: +7 (495) 628-7931

www.hse.rudemidova@hse.ru